


Standard Protocols

by wedgetail



Series: Truths and Lies [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Asgard (Marvel), Dysfunctional Family, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family Drama, Feels, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Medical Examination, Panic Attacks, Thor: The Dark World
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-21
Updated: 2020-09-29
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:48:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23768767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wedgetail/pseuds/wedgetail
Summary: Loki, the much-mourned prince of Asgard, is back from the dead. It’s an ignominious homecoming. He returns in shackles and, many whisper, lost to insanity.And as long as he remains in Asgard’s dungeons, Loki must be processed according to the standard protocols every other Asgardian prisoner is subject to. Concerned for the welfare of her junior staff and very much curious about Asgard’s allegedly mad prince, Healer Lunda decides to undertake the task herself.But Loki has always been a tricky patient.
Relationships: Loki & Odin (Marvel)
Series: Truths and Lies [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1712269
Comments: 40
Kudos: 97





	1. After New York

“Through here, yes?” Thor’s voice boomed out in the corridor.

It galled Lunda that it took six guards and Thor with his hammer at the ready to bring Loki in. They only had to transport him from his holding cell to the examination room and there were all of three hundred paces between the two. He was handcuffed and fettered too. Enchanted handcuffs and fetters at that; the heavy chains were in etched runes. She had to wonder if they truly believed Loki was dangerous enough to necessitate such precautions, or if this was a way to impress upon Loki his changed position on Asgard.

Lunda tugged at the shoulder seam of her healer’s uniform. There was something off in the tailoring; the garment refused to sit correctly on her. “Please remove the trailing chains. The shackles on his hands and feet will suffice. This shouldn’t take more than twenty minutes; please wait outside while I work. I’ll let you know if I require longer than that.”

_Realistically, I almost certainly will._

“Certainly, ma’am,” the highest-ranked of the guards said as they removed the unnecessary chains. This was a matter of daily routine for them.

Thor, on the other hand, cast an uncertain glance at his brother. “I think it’d be better if I stay here.”

“I appreciate your concern, your highness. But I need a degree of privacy to conduct my work. Besides, there’s only one way out of this room,” Lunda replied.

He still didn’t look comfortable with the situation, but the guards had begun to file out so he must have gathered this was standard practice down here in the dungeons. Scowling, he turned to his brother. “You so much as try something, I’ll be here in a second and you’ll feel the full brunt of my wrath.”

“Truly, I am terrified,” Loki replied dryly.

Lunda shut the door behind Thor. Both the door and the wall that adjoined the corridor were constructed of semi-opaque material. You could see the outlines of people within and hear raised voices, but the details of what occurred within remained obscured. This was the best compromise yet found between a prisoner’s need for privacy and the necessity of maintaining safe working conditions for the healers.

Now that they were alone, Lunda focused on Loki proper. He had been stripped of his princely regalia, but wasn’t in standard clothing issued to prisoners either. His hair — an oily, tangled mess — was longer than it had been when she had last seen him and heavy bags sat beneath his eyes. He still stood as straight as ever, however, and towered over her. Over the years she had seen him at his brother’s side so often, it was always a shock to realise that although he didn’t match Thor’s height, he was nevertheless inches taller than the average Asgardian.

“I am Chief Healer Lunda,” she began. “I am —”

“I know who you are.”

“If so, I am glad for it,” she replied, which was true enough. Rumours flew around Asgard claiming that Loki had utterly succumbed to madness and recognised nothing of his old life. She hadn’t believed those tales, but it was good to have confirmation. “It is standard protocol for every prisoner to undergo a medical evaluation before their trial can proceed.”

“Surely that’s not a task for the chief healer to undertake.”

That was certainly correct. But the palace had been in such storm of gossip and conspiracy theories since Thor had brought his brother back to Asgard, Lunda had been hesitant to assign any of her junior healers to the task. She had been curious to see Loki for herself also. There had been a time when he and Lunda had gotten along quite well.

Loki made a small step toward Lunda, sending his fetters clanking. “It’d be a waste of time even for a trainee. What’s the use of worrying over a man who’ll be dead within months?”

She tried not to react, but she thought her eyes betrayed her. “Do you not know your father at all? And were he to even suggest it, your mother would… She wouldn’t let it happen.”

“The king isn’t my father nor the queen my mother. You’ll find too that the queen will acquiesce to her husband’s wishes, as she has done before. Really, this exercise is a waste of time for both of us.” Loki replied. After a mirthless chuckle, he added, “This is even a waste of Thor’s time and the guards’. Though I don’t much weep on their behalf.”

“Enough now, Loki. Get onto the bed.”

He stiffened, but, no doubt realising that Lunda could call in Thor and have Thor manhandle him into the soul forge, obeyed her directions. In Lunda’s estimation, this was a good sign. Many prisoners insisted on being uncooperative; it wasn’t unusual for healers to have to resort to bringing in the guards. Gags were sometimes necessary too. More often than anyone who didn’t work in the dungeons would have guessed.

Loki said nothing as he stretched out on the stiff mattress of the soul forge. Lunda pulled up the chain dangling off the side of the machine; prisoners couldn’t be left unrestrained in case the healer had to turn away from the soul forge. She connected the chain to Loki’s handcuffs and frowned at how thin and delicate that chain seemed in comparison to the restraints he already wore. Loki had no comment about the additional restraint either and merely turned his head to the side so he faced the back wall. Lunda suppressed a laugh; he had done exactly the same as a child when he had healers looking over him.

_He_ _’s a child no longer, but a murderer many times over. Don’t lose yourself to sentimentality._

“Did you know?” Loki asked sharply.

“Know about what?”

“What I am, beneath the illusions.”

“No, I —”

He went on as if he hadn’t heard her. “There had to have been someone in the palace who would’ve known besides… besides the king and queen. Healers, in particular, seem suspect. My physiology would have deviations, no? And children don’t pop up out of nowhere; someone had to have noticed that my mother was pregnant with one child yet gave birth to two.”

Loki didn’t seem to notice the slip of his tongue, so Lunda let it go without comment, but it did warm her to know that, despite his protestations, Loki still thought of his mother in these terms. “I wasn’t employed here in the palace when you were born and I didn’t know later either. Honestly, I still don’t know properly. We’ve miles of rumours, but no official explanation about what happened.”

“I’m a frost giant, a traitor and a murderer. What else is there to know?” Loki turned his head then and met Lunda’s eyes. She had no idea what he sought from her at that moment, but the intensity of his gaze unnerved her.

“I think the how and why of it would go a long way toward explaining how you ended up in these shackles. We all watched you grow up, Loki. You had your quirks as all children do, but you were never cruel or callous.”

“A beast might look tamed, but it always remains a wild creature at heart.”

Lunda sighed. “Is that what you are now? A beast?”

“No.” Loki’s voice turned cold. “That’s what I’ve always been. The metaphor isn’t so hard to grasp, surely?”

He sounded little different then from the rapists and murderers the healers usually encountered down here. A lump solidified at the back of her throat. She really didn’t understand how Loki could have taken such a turn. She remembered him sitting long hours at Thor’s bedside, trading jokes to keep his brother distracted while Thor recovered from his latest bout of tomfoolery. She remembered too Loki working diligently alongside her own trainees during his teen years; he’d had a fascination with the healing arts once and it had been thought for a time that he would apprentice formally as a healer. Only, Eir, who had been in her last years as chief healer then, had discouraged an apprenticeship for reasons Lunda had never quite grasped.

“Oh, Norns be damned,” Lunda muttered. “Eir knew. She was always very involved when it came to you, wasn’t she? I thought it was because you were the prince, but she didn’t care half as much about your brother. And there was that oddness with your temperature reading and the lack of a blood replenisher. You remember your run-in with the bilgesnipe, don’t you?”

“I’ve tried to forget, but no luck.” Moving awkwardly due to the short chain-span between his handcuffs, Loki pushed himself up into a seated position. “She developed a special replenisher for me. There was an ingredient in the standard formula that I’d had some bad reaction to. Although, I can’t say I remember ever having any adverse effects after a replenisher.”

“That was later I think. But she didn’t give it to you then and you would’ve recovered quicker if she had. She couldn’t, of course. The standard variant, based on Asgardian blood, could have killed you. But I should have guessed then — the temperature readings the machines were spitting out that night were too low for an Asgardian.”

“Normal for a frost giant though?”

“Exactly. I do remember now. I brought it up with her and she told me it had to be a technical fault. She bloody knew the truth. Someone had to know and who better than the chief healer? But she never bothered to tell me!” Lunda swore, which prompted a laugh from Loki. She shook her head. “It’s nothing to be laughing about. My ignorance could’ve killed you. If I were to inject Asgardian blood into you, it’d be little different to pumping poison into your bloodstream.”

“Maybe they didn’t care for the consequences,” Loki said. He tried to sound nonchalant, but couldn’t keep the hurt out of his tone.

“The king, the queen, Eir and whoever else was in on it were idiots through and through.”

Loki gave her an odd look but offered no reply.

Out on the edge of her vision, Thor’s figure shifted on the other side of the semi-opaque wall. Lunda sighed and tried to bring her thoughts under control. She had work to do, after all. She could dot-point the number of ways the king and Eir had endangered Loki’s life at some later date.

“We should get to the matter at hand,” she said, gently resting her hand on Loki’s shoulder. “Lie back down for me.”

“Just leave it. We’re already established that our illustrious Allfather doesn’t prioritise my health.”

“This isn’t a negotiation. You won’t be the first prisoner down here to refuse to cooperate with a healer; the guards know how to deal with that. And your brother will be happy to assist them.”

“That oaf is no my brother of mine,” Loki grumbled as he slunk back onto the mattress. While that wasn’t a sentiment Lunda liked to hear, she was relieved he was willing to cooperate. It didn’t help anyone in the long term if a prisoner had to be held down while the healer did their work or if matters got so out of control that a chemical intervention was required.

She flicked on the soul forge and waited for it to boot up. This machine took a while, it was practically an antique, barely more sophisticated than the med cradles Loki would remember from his childhood. Slowly, however, images began to form above Loki’s prone body.

“Bloody wonderful,” Loki mumbled before Lunda could react. He would have learned enough as an unofficial healer’s trainee to be able to interpret the projection himself.

Lunda, for her part, had guessed the results would be troubling. Between rumours of a massive battle over Midgard, Loki’s harried looks and his obvious reluctance to undergo an examination, her jaw would have dropped to the floor if he had been in perfect health. But the sum of it — healed fractures, damaged nerves, stretched tendons, frayed ligaments —left her aghast. She was amazed there were no outward signs of these injuries when Loki moved.

“Now you know what manner of brute your future king and his Midgardian friends really are,” Loki grimaced. He started to get up, but Lunda pressed her hand against his solar plexus and jerked her head to Thor’s foggy figure visible through the wall. Loki stilled.

She could feel the wild beat of his heart under her palm. “This isn’t from your escapades on Midgard. The bulk of this is months old. Healed badly, but healed nonetheless.”

As Lunda had heard it, Thor had explained that Loki had finally been brought down by some large beast native to Midgard —physically pummelled into submission. The queen’s fears about what such treatment had done to her son had expedited this medical assessment.

Looking at the soul forge projections, Lunda could see remnants of that skirmish: bone fractures, contusions on the inner organs, a concussion. Loki’s innate magic had done a lot of work toward healing these injuries already. Yet his magic had done such a poor job on these older wounds. More peculiar yet, someone had tried to put him right later on. Several bones had been rebroken and reset straight, several ligaments had been surgically repaired and a compound metal insert held together a vertebra in his lumbar spine. This work was too sophisticated for Midgardians to have been responsible and was too primitive for what any decent Asgardian healer could do.

“Loki, what is all this? How did it happen?” Lunda asked.

He fiddled with the chain between his handcuffs. Only now did Lunda notice that the index finger on his left hand sat crooked. It had been dislocated and not set back at the right angle. “The thing with falling is this: eventually, you have to land. Considering how long I had to fall, as I’m sure you can imagine, it was quite a crash landing. But the bulk of it is from Midgard.”

“You’re lying.”

Loki let out a snort and for the first time seemed genuinely angry. “Why? Because that’s just what I always do?”

“Sure, you’ve always spun a tale when it suited you. But this… if you’re going to lie, do better. Don’t insult me by suggesting that I can’t tell the difference between a two-day-old injury and those from many months ago.”

“I don’t actually owe you an explanation.”

She had to concede on this. Loki would be questioned, likely by several trained people, over the next weeks in preparation for his trial and the truth would come out then. Her purview was limited to assuring he was healthy enough to stand trial.

“All right then,” she said. “I won’t ask you questions about how you came by these injuries. But we need to come up with a treatment plan; I can’t repair such breadth of damage in one session.”

“The chief healer has better things to do, surely?”

Lunda purposefully misunderstood the question. “Would you prefer to be treated by a different healer?”

“I would prefer to return to my cell and enjoy a good book or two while my head is still attached to my neck,” Loki snapped.

“If the opportunity arises and you are able to escape the confines of your cell, it’d be in your best interest to be as hale as possible.”

Loki tilted his head. “I think encouraging my flight from Asgardian custody could be construed as treason.”

As she was well-aware. And she certainly wasn’t encouraging anything. His cold manner made it plain that he was now far from the boy or even the young man she remembered so fondly. It made it easier to remember too that he wasn’t innocent of the crimes he was accused of. But the fundamentals of a person never changed. Odin wouldn’t execute his youngest; no one who had seen how bitterly the royal family had grieved when they believed him most after the destruction of the Bifrost would believe the Allfather would put his son to death. No, as Lunda saw it, a long imprisonment in the bowels of the palace awaited Loki.

At the same time, Loki would always take the chance to slip away, whether the opportunity came tomorrow or in a thousand years. And if she could secure his cooperation today by dangling before him the possibility of liberty at some future date, she was happy to do so.

There was a knock on the door.

“I need more time!” Lunda called out, then lowered her voice so only Loki could hear her. “My responsibility is your health. What you choose to do when you leave this room is outside my control. But be honest with me for a second here. You’ve never been one for complaining, but all of this trauma must have you in chronic pain.”

“It’s fine,” Loki sighed. “I’m fine. If you must, hand me a something for the concussion headache that damned overgrown gremlin gave me, then let me be. There’s nothing here worth fixing.”

“Loki —”

“Just leave me be, woman.”

Lunda pressed her lips together and suppressed her urge to tell Loki exactly what she thought of his stubbornness. “This is in your best interest. Give me one good reason why —”

“For fuck’s sake, leave me alone!” Loki shut his eyes and ground his teeth together. She had no idea what to make of it until the hue of his skin began to change. When his eyes flew open again, they shone a vivid scarlet. “What do you say, chief healer? Still worth your time?”

Bile rose in her throat; she had only ever seen frost giants once before. The ones who had snuck into the Weapons Vault the day Thor was supposed to have been crowned king. They had been dead for several hours by the time Lunda had been called in, so their skin had been pallid and eyes dull. Loki looked nothing like that.

“Well? Answer me!” Loki shouted.

Before Lunda could offer a reply, Thor burst in, his hand clenched around Mjolnir’s handle. “What’s going on in…”

He paled as his words died on his lips. Loki, on the other hand, froze for a split second, then wrenched his entire body to the side. The chain between his handcuffs and the soul forge snapped. He rolled off the mattress and scrambled to the back wall, his eyes never leaving Thor.

“Get out,” Loki muttered. “Get out! Don’t— I can’t.” He gulped down a breath. “I can’t. Why isn’t it…”

“Loki?” Lunda called out.

He gasped for breath again and sank to his knees. Lunda rushed over to him. He seemed unable to suck in enough breath and his words had become incoherent. She pressed her hand against the side of his neck; his pulse was racing.

“What is he doing?” Thor demanded.

Lunda pulled a small syringe out of the inner pocket of her coat. It was intended to protect healers from unruly prisoners, but right now, Loki was more likely to be a danger to himself. She sank the needle into the skin of his forearm, thankful that the needle was robust enough to pierce Jotunn skin. Within moments his breathing slowed, then his muttering ceased and he sagged onto the floor.

“Your highness, could you please help me move him back into the soul forge?” Lunda said. She sucked in a deep breath herself, then motioned for the guards, who had poured into the room after Thor, to withdraw back to the corridor.

Thor set down his hammer and, in a single, smooth motion, lifted his brother off the floor and deposited him back onto the mattress. “What did I just witness? Why does he look like this?”

“A panic attack, I believe,” Lunda replied. “He was arguing with me and stripped off the illusions in an effort to frighten me. But these illusions are not of his making and these handcuffs are binding his magic almost completely. I think when he tried to restore the illusions, he couldn’t. I sedated him lest he hurt himself; he should come around in a couple of hours.”

“So this is… Father explained it to me,” Thor said. He reached out to touch the raised ridges on Loki’s forehead, but then pulled back. “But I’ve never seen him like this before.”

“It’s still Loki.”

“I know. He still sounded the same.”

Now that Thor had pointed it out, Lunda realised he was entirely correct. Loki’s face was almost unrecognisable, but his voice hadn’t changed at all. She glanced down at his hands. And the damaged index finger on his left hand remained crooked.

_Bor_ _’s bloody balls. Does the Allfather understand what a mess he’s made?_

“I’m not surprised he tried to argue with you,” Thor went on. “He refuses to listen to reason. I tried to talk sense to him on Midgard. It’s no use. Are you done with you had to do? Should we carry him back to his cell?”

“Not yet, your highness,” Lunda replied. “He’s in worse shape than your mother or I anticipated. I can repair some of the damage during these couple of hours before he wakes. But could you ask your mother or father to come down? I would guess they created the illusions to cover his heritage; they would be best placed to restore them.”

“Maybe we should leave it as is?”

Lunda shook her head. “Realising he was trapped in his Jotunn form just set off a panic attack. He’ll be calmer if we allow him the comfort of the face he grew up with.”

Loki groaned and attempted to sink his head deeper into the pillow. A few moments later, he rolled over to the side. Lunda had decided to leave him undisturbed until he woke up on his own. What was supposed to have been half an hour of work for her had taken up the majority of her day already. Another ten or fifteen minutes didn’t bother her. But the break she attempted to offer Loki fell through. When he tried to bring his hands closer to his chest, his blanket caught on his handcuffs and that was enough to fully pull him out of his slumber.

“How are you feeling?” Lunda asked.

Although his eyes were still bleary, Loki untangled the thin blanket from around his cuffs, then glanced around the sparsely furnished and dimly lit holding cell he had been assigned to. “Is this a permanent adornment now?” he demanded, lifting his hands a little to show off his heavy handcuffs. On Asgard, prisoners weren’t typically restrained while within their cells. “Or is this for your benefit?”

“The latter.”

Loki’s face twisted into an ugly expression, but then he seemed to think better of voicing whatever was on his mind and instead asked, “Who restored the illusions?”

“The Allfather did.”

Loki offered only a loud grunt in response, the meaning of which was a mystery to Lunda. In truth, she too would have preferred the queen’s assistance. Thor, however, had been adamant she didn’t learn of what had happened and had sought his father’s aid instead. In the end, it took the king five hours to find the spare twenty minutes to come down to the dungeons and restore his own spellwork. On one hand, Lunda had been profoundly irritated by the delay. On the other hand, since she had already decided to keep Loki sedated until he looked like himself again, the delay became an opportunity to get more work done than she had initially planned to.

Looking at him now, he didn’t seem to be any worse for wear after the sedative, which had been her most pressing concern. But she still needed to address other matters.

_Let_ _’s see how far we’ll get before we end up in another argument._

“Do you understand what happened this morning?” Lunda asked.

“These cuffs dampened my magic more severely than I assumed,” Loki replied in a disinterested tone.

“Yes, but that’s not what I was referring to. Have you experienced panic attacks before?”

He rubbed his nose with the back of his hand. “How long was I out?”

“Please answer my question.”

“No.”

“No, you never have? Or no, you refuse to give an answer?”

“Interpret my response as you like.” Loki slipped off his narrow bed and climbed onto his feet. “Really, I don’t see why I should answer your questions. It’s not as if you’re listening to me. I told you to leave me alone, but you sedated me and treated me against my wishes.”

“You need to remember your legal position now. As a prisoner, your right to refuse medical treatment is forfeit.”

“You should leave now, Lunda,” Loki replied through gritted his teeth. “Handcuffs or no, I’m still physically stronger than you are and by the time the guards react, I’ll have already made a mush of your skull.”

Lunda exhaled slowly in an effort to remain calm. This was uncalled for; she was only trying to help him. Everyone – the guards, Thor, the king – had been hesitant about Lunda’s intent to wait inside Loki’s cell until he woke up and she could confirm he wasn’t suffering any ill side-effects of the sedative she had given him. But Lunda had hoped she could get him to calm down and they could have a more honest conversation. Well, the prospect of that happening seemed dim now.

As far as she could figure it, she had only one thing up her sleeve that could mollify Loki’s ill-temper. She brought her hand up in front of her, palms out and facing Loki. “I can’t change the law and I can’t renege my duty by ignoring your poor physical condition. But I didn’t mention to anyone the age of your injuries. That much I can do for you.”

That decision had actually been more for her own benefit than Loki’s. Things proceeded easier if there was a basic level of trust between a healer and a patient. Meanwhile, the details of what had befallen Loki would come out by the end of his trial. Her omission would change nothing in the long run.

“Are you going bloody deaf?” Loki replied. Lunda had hoped to calm him with her words, but he only grew more agitated. “I was injured on Midgard.”

Lunda shook her head. “Fine, Loki. I’ll return in two days to reassess your progress. If you feel you must lie, come up with a better cover story by then.”

“You’re not touching me again.”

“I must; there are some things I’m still far from satisfied with.” She attempted a sympathetic smile. “I hope you’re in better spirits when we next meet.”

“Don’t count on it,” Loki shot back. “Guards! The healer is leaving now!”

_Pig-headed lout. Between him, his brother and his father, I don_ _’t know how the queen ever went a week without tearing out her hair._


	2. After Svartalfheim (I)

“I need your help.”

Lunda jerked and shuffled backward until the back of her head collided with the front door. As she mentally scrambled to find any implement in the vicinity that could be used for self-defence — her mind unhelpfully locked on the question of whether her winter boots were capable of inflicting any kind of damage, the intruder let out a strangled moan.

“Please, Lunda,” he said, “I mean you no harm.”

He sounded like he meant it and once Lunda worked past the deafening whirring of her immediate panic, she became conscious of a small, yet vital detail. She recognised the voice. Loki. Loki — the Prince of Asgard and the blood son of King Laufey of Jotunheim; a convicted murderer sentenced to lifelong imprisonment and a fugitive; and most recently, a hero who sacrificed himself for the sake of the Nine Realms. Or so his brother had said. 

Lunda summoned her courage, reminding herself that in all the years she had known him, Loki had never tried to hurt her. And judging by the pleading undertone to his words, he was not planning to do so now. Yet she crept toward him nevertheless. In the dungeons, he had been restrained and the guards had always been within earshot. Here, in her own house, she was far more exposed to his mercy.

The lights flickered on once she entered the main part of the house. They never used to flicker, having been calibrated properly when installed, but there was damage everywhere now and a few flickering lights were far from the worst of what Lunda had to contend with. Yet even with the lights on, it took Lunda a few moments to locate Loki sprawled out along the length of the couch, with only his legs dangling over the side. He had drawn over himself the old navy blue blanket she liked to curl up under on colder evenings, which camouflaged him against the similarly shaded upholstery of the couch.

Seeing her, he lifted his head and offered her a shy smile. “Forgive the intrusion. I really do need your help.”

Lunda dismissed the first question to come to her mind: why didn’t you go to a hospital? The answer was obvious. But, before she thought better of it, she blurted out an equally daft one, “Why are you sitting about in the dark?”

“Couldn’t risk you spotting the lights on from the lit-up windows and becoming alarmed before I could speak to you,” Loki replied with a gravity her question did not merit. He slid his arm from under the blanket, grabbed onto the edge of the couch frame and pulled himself up until he was semi-upright. Gritting his teeth, he pulled the blanket off him entirely and said, “I think I’ve come as far as I can get with this on my own.”

Lunda had been working double shifts for days; she had a feeling that she would not have noticed even if all the glass in the windows had vanished. And if she had, she would have assumed that she had left the lights when she headed out that morning in the pre-dawn murk. But as tired as Lunda presently was, she surmised she had more work ahead of her. As she had learned to do over the years, she set that tiredness and brain fog aside for when her labours were complete.

Judging by the gauntlets, Loki had at some point been reunited with the leather and metal outer layers he had customarily worn until his disgrace, but had at some point discarded all of these save for the gauntlets. This left him in a forest-green long-sleeved tunic that was badly stained across his front. He lifted it up. It was unmistakably a puncture wound, but it was small, perhaps an inch long and not open wide at all. By the way Loki had been acting, Lunda had expected to see a gaping, bleeding mess.

She leaned in for a better look. From the size of the injury, she would have said it was close to healing, but there were deep, dark blue lines radiating away from the injury site. Judging by the colour, not a natural infection, but poison.

“Doesn’t look good, does it?” Loki said.

Lunda took a beat to bury her natural reaction beneath the veneer of a healer’s professional composure. “What exactly happened on Svartalfheim?”

By Thor’s account, Loki had been rammed right through by one of the dark elven warriors and had expired soon after with Thor at his side. While, clearly, there had been a stab wound involved somewhere in the story, Thor had evidently not seen what he thought he had. Or had lied. Lunda thought the latter unlikely, but of late, a great many things had happened across the Nine Realms that she would never have thought possible.

Loki’s face tightened and he lowered his tunic to cover the wound, as if the very sight of it unnerved him. “I was trying to make sure Thor’s idiotic woman made it through and caught an enemy blade right in my torso. The blade got to my spine, I think. I had no control over my feet anymore. So I figured that was that, I was dying. Or I wasn’t and that was even worse. Thor, being the imbecile that he is, would have dallied trying to save me and time was against him. It was better to get him to say his farewell there and then, so he could go on to do what was needed with his conscience clear.”

He fell silent as Lunda pressed the back of her hand against his forehead and then lifted his tunic once more so she could examine the wound more closely. She rested a fingertip again one of the tendrils of spreading poison. The discoloured skin radiated heat. She applied the smallest modicum of pressure and Loki hissed with pain.

“Pardon me,” she said.

He ignored her apology and after a long sigh, continued his tale, “I did what I could after he and the Midgardian woman left. Lost consciousness for a while. I don’t know for how long, but I think it was a while. When I came around, I felt better. Not well, but well enough to feel my legs again and crawl out of that wasteland.”

“And then you came here?”

“I was aiming for my mother’s store of healing supplies, but I realised along the way that I wouldn’t make it. Your house was closer. I came through the back. I’m sorry about the garden; it must’ve been beautiful.”

A large fragment of a dark elven ship had crashed into her yard during their assault on Asgard. The garden was a wreck, as was the back terrace — Loki would have been able to walk in without forcing any doors. Of course, he was not the type to let a locked door stop him.

Lunda forced a smile. “I’ll get the debris cleared out and replant. It’ll look beautiful again in a year or two.” She paused, pondering the wisdom of what she wanted to say, but decided to say it nevertheless. “I’m sorry about your mother.”

“Can you do anything about this wound?” Loki replied. “Or am I dying after all?”

_Her death does not undo all that came before. What response were you expecting from him?_

“I don’t much like the look of it; there must have been poison on the blade,” Lunda said. Loki had brought the conversation back to the wound for all the wrong reasons, but he was right to have done so. He was not on his death bed yet, however, he might well be soon if Lunda did not do her job. “Let’s get you to the bed in the bedroom; you’ll be more comfortable there.”

Either Loki’s condition was deteriorating or he had genuinely crawled his way back to Asgard. When Lunda coaxed him to stand, he managed to do so, but after a few steps his feet began to give out under him. Lunda more or less dragged him the fifteen feet to her bedroom and although Loki never cried out, his eyes were watery by the time he set his head against Lunda’s favourite pillow.

Lunda fetched a stack of clean towels and the healer’s kit she kept at the house — the neighbourhood knew what work she did and scarcely a fortnight went by without someone knocking at the door, seeking help for some malady. But the common people of Asgard had correspondingly common maladies. Her healer’s kid was ill-equipped for injuries caused by poison-dipped dark elven blades.

_If you dally, it might be too late for him. Work with what you have._

Loki chewed on his lip, watching with wary interest as Lunda took out a white blade with a polished narwhal tusk handle. It was a positive sign, Lunda reminded herself, that he was coherent and present. Many stricken by such poisons would be lost to delirium already. But something in his expression unsettled her and she wondered again about all those old injuries she had re-healed after his return from Midgard.

“Before we start, I’ll give you—“

“No.”

“Loki, don’t be ridiculous.”

“I don’t need anything. Just get on with it.”

Sighing, she knelt by the bed and began the work. The blade was as sharp as any scalpel she had ever held. It slid smoothly through the discoloured skin and in moments, the blood flowed freely from the wound Loki’s magic had put such efforts into repairing. Lunda pressed a towel over the wound and glanced up. Loki had not produced anything beyond a whimper, but his face looked decidedly greener.

“How are you doing so far?” Lunda said. “We now need to draw out the poison and —”

“And it’ll burn with all the fury of the fires of Muspelheim,” Loki muttered. He inhaled a shuddered breath. “I know, woman. Do what must be done.”

She shook her head. It would have been excruciating to have that wound reopened, but the next step was notorious. There was a line between stoicism and self-torment, and Loki was edging well towards the latter. The pain relief remedies she had on hand were the milder sort to take the edge of a fractured ankle until the patient could be given proper treatment, but it was better than nothing. She uncapped the bottle and measured a double dose.

“Swallow this first, Loki,” she said. “Don’t argue with me on this. If naught else, I have neighbours and they’ll investigate if they hear you screaming your head off.”

Loki brows knitted together and his reluctance was carved into his expression as he tipped the pain reliever into his mouth. Something was amiss there. But Loki was as stubborn as a mule on a good day and tonight she had neither the time nor the energy to pry out what was going on in his head. She drew out a jar from the bottom of her healer’s kit — the purgeant was not an item of high demand in Lunda’s neighbourhood. Within was a thick, off-white paste with an oily sheen.

“Try to take deep breaths, especially when you feel you can’t breathe at all,” Lunda said as she pulled off the towel over Loki’s wound and quickly lathered the paste over the incision she had made. By the time she pressed a fresh towel over her work, Loki’s chest heaved up and down in jerky motions and his hand was clenched around the headboard.

Loki never screamed, but he seemed deaf to all words of comfort Lunda tried to offer him. After a quarter of an hour, she pulled off the towel and scraped off the remaining paste, then spread a new layer of the purgeant over the wound and covered it with a fresh towel. She repeated this routine at fifteen-minute intervals three more times, until the blood flow slowed and the tendrils of the poison’s spread took on a paler shade of blue.

“Is there any blood left in me at this point?” Loki muttered as Lunda discarded another stained towel into the pile on the floor. There had been a lot of blood and Loki’s face was ashen white, but it was far from the worst blood loss Lunda had dealt with since the dark elves had mounted their assault on Asgard. “You wouldn’t have any blood replenisher for me here. Only the palace would have some on hand still.”

“The palace does. I made sure of it,” Lunda replied.

Loki brushed his hand over the towel and pulled back with a wince. The worst was over, but the purgeant still had much work to do and the burning pain wound linger for many hours still. “What’s happening at the palace?” Loki asked. She had the sense that he was attempting to distract himself from his current situation. “Since Asgard is still here, I assume Thor managed to deal with the dark elves. And then? Is he back?”

For a few moments, Lunda was befuddled. Everyone had seen Thor and Malekith battle in the Convergence. But then she remembered Loki saying that he had lost consciousness for some time.

“Thor and the Midgardians defeated the dark elves,” she explained. “Thor has returned, alone. From what I’ve seen of him he’s in the same mood as the rest of us. There’s much to be rebuilt, many yet to recover from their injuries and many lost lives to mourn. You and your mother among them.”

Loki was silent for a long while, long enough that Lunda thought he would offer no reply, but then he asked, “Did you attend her funeral?”

“I did, yes.”

“Would you tell me what it was like?” Loki said and hesitantly added, “They didn’t even tell me she was gone until after the funeral was over.”


	3. After Svartalfheim (II)

Lunda woke up with the dawn, not remotely well-rested. After staying up late into the night dealing with Loki, she had collapsed on the living room couch, where she tossed and turned for at least an hour more. She got up nonetheless; she was needed at the palace.

Buried up to his ears under two thick blankets, Loki was lost to the world. She didn’t wake him. Instead, she lined up the medications she wanted him to take and wrote out instructions on timing and dosage. She suspected he would be more inclined to obey the instructions with her absent; Loki couldn’t argue with someone who wasn’t there.

“Lunda!” Fafnir called out once she was out on the street. He lived three houses down and worked at the palace library. Whenever their shifts aligned they walked up to the palace together. “How are you doing? I didn’t spot you returning home. Hope you weren’t working until midnight again.”

“Not quite midnight, but late enough.”

Lunda grimaced. She couldn’t give him an honest answer and that realisation sent a cold shiver of dread through her. Last night her thoughts focused on Loki’s health and on what small ways she could comfort his grief. But this morning, with the cold, wet air thick about her and the shouts of the waking city market audible in the distance, she couldn’t ignore the world beyond the bounds of her house.

Loki was a convicted criminal. An escaped, convicted criminal. If not for Odin’s belief that Loki was dead, search parties would be presently spreading in every direction in search of him. And when found, he would be restrained and locked back up in his cell. One good deed couldn't -– and didn’t -– annul the crimes he had been convicted of.

“Lunda? Is something on your mind?” Fafnir asked gently.

“No, I’m just as tired this morning as I was last night and today will be another busy day. And there’s no end in sight for weeks yet.”

“Months for us, I think,” Fafnir grumbled.

Lunda had yet to have the time to see the library for herself, but she had heard the damage was considerable. Still, months seemed like an awfully long time. “Really? Do you believe the damage is that extensive?”

Fafnir did indeed believe so and launched into an explanation of the damage the various sections of the library had suffered: some had been wrecked entirely, some suffered smoke damage and some were soaked after the fighting destroyed piping on the floors above the library and brought torrents of water down on the bookcases. Lunda half-listened and nodded along where she thought she was expected to do so, but her thoughts kept drifting to the disgraced Asgardian prince curled up in her bed.

###

As she had anticipated, her work kept her occupied through the day. The palace’s compact medical wing was in no way equipped to treat everyone injured in the dark elf attack. Nor were there available beds at the public hospitals. In fact, Lunda continued to receive missives from overwhelmed healers at the public hospitals pleading for the palace to take on more patients. Lunda refused them all. Already, several rooms and halls in the vicinity of the medical wing had been reconfigured into temporary hospital wards and Lunda had called up every retired healer she knew and even the most junior of trainees to assist.

Slowly, however, the bone-wrenching panic of the first few days was subsiding. Everyone became accustomed to their assigned tasks and the most demanding of patients either passed out of the realms of the living or found the path to recovery.

For many that would be a slow path and beset by setbacks, which would be difficult for both patients and healers. But Lunda permitted herself a small measure of satisfaction with the overall progress thus far when she brewed herself a mug of strong black tea in the early hours of the evening. She fortified it with stimulant herbs and the last of the sugar from the communal sugar bowl in the staff room. It was hot, rich and bitter -– the best mug of tea Lunda had tasted in months.

“Everything in order?” Eir asked when she walked in. She retired to an outlying village years ago, but regularly visited extended family in the city. The years had changed her little and her skills were just as sharp. Lunda had been quick to summon her to consult when Thor’s Midgardian woman arrived in an infinity stone living within her. And after the dark elves, Eir and Birte, Lunda’s second-in-command, shared the job of Acting Chief Healer through the nights while Lunda tried to find rest.

“We had difficulty with Elof earlier, but we have him stabilised now,” Lunda motioned to the vacant seat opposite her and the steaming pot of tea on the table. “Let’s do the handover once I’m done with the tea; I need to give my feet a few minutes’ rest.”

“What you need is a long holiday,” Eir replied.

Lunda quirked a smile; they all needed a few months of peace and relaxation.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you something.” Lunda knew was the staff room was empty save for the two of them, but she glanced around nonetheless. “About Prince Loki. You knew all along, didn’t you?”

“I did. Did you not—”

“Why keep it a secret from me? It’s something a healer needs to know, don’t you think so?”

Eir was silent for a long moment, then sighed. “I’d have told you had I been able. The Allfather was adamant no one was to know and took precautions. Did he never explain the story to you?”

“No. He didn’t!”

“Foolish man,” Eir’s voice rang with genuine anger; the sort Lunda associated with occasions when a healer working under Eir had done something profoundly dangerous and not merely out of ignorance. “When did you figure it out?”

“I dealt with Loki’s medical care after Midgard. It brought to mind that old fiasco with her bilgesnipe injuries and it all clicked together,” Lunda replied, more mildly. It was a vindication to her that Eir was similarly dissatisfied with Odin’s decisions regarding Loki. And the knowledge that there was someone who openly shared her opinion made it easier to reign in her temper.

“How was he?”

Lunda hesitated. There was much to say and she had no idea whether she should bring up all those injuries she had healed. As far as she knew, for all the times Loki had been questioned, he had given no account of where he had been between the destruction of the Bifrost and his attack on Midgard.

Eir must have caught something in Lunda’s expression. She dropped the question and said, “I told the Allfather from the first that he needed to tell the boy. The queen agreed with me, but he always delayed, waiting for the right time. That time never came, of course. Now that poor boy is lying lifeless somewhere under the sands of Svartalfheim; what a waste of a brilliant mind.”

_Not lying lifeless on Svartalfheim, but buried under blankets on my bed. But, yes, he still looked like death warmed over this morning._

“Do you think he would’ve recovered in time had he survived Svartalfheim?” Lunda asked. She couldn’t well ask the real question on the tip of her tongue: what do I do with him when I get home tonight?

“Imprisonment seldom improves a prisoner’s mind maladies. Perhaps with a great deal of patience from Frigga, she could’ve made a difference; they were always close.” Eir took a sip of her tea and reached for the sugar bowl. She scowled at Lunda on finding it empty; Lunda’s sweet-tooth was well-known among the healers. “But that’s a theoretical opinion. You saw him more recently than I did. How did you find him?”

“Angry, sarcastic and uncooperative,” Lunda replied, frowning. “But you could tell something was shattered beneath. He had a panic attack in front of me, although he refused to acknowledge that it happened. And, possibly, some suicidal adulation was going on?”

“Then perhaps he intended to die on Svartalfheim,” Eir muttered into her tea. She set the cup down and checked the time. “It’s getting on in the day and our business is the living, not those who dine in Valhalla. Shall we?”

There was no way Lunda could say “no, let’s gossip about our supposedly dead prince some more” without raising eyebrows, so she finished her tea in three gulps and followed Eir out to the wards. But later, when Eir had clocked in to officially relieve Lunda for the night and Lunda was free to walk back home, Eir’s “poor boy” comment refused to budge from her thoughts.

Was Loki worthy of such sentiments?

Svartalfheim had affected a change. Loki had been as rude and uncooperative a prisoner as the worst of them down in the dungeons. But last night he had been a young man trying to be brave in the face of a severe injury and fighting back tears when discussing the loss of his mother. Even his determination to get to Lunda’s house and get medical assistance was a turn from his earlier protests about receiving medical treatment. It was the behaviour of a man who wanted to live.

It could be, Lunda supposed, that merely being outside the dungeons had spurred the change. But to what end? Even as a child, Loki had a malicious streak –- setting up vicious traps for those he felt deserved it and he never hesitated to lie to get his way.

Lunda had nothing to go on beyond Loki’s testimony about what happened on Svartalfheim. He could have purposefully faked his death. An escaped prisoner needed to be caught; no one would come looking for a dead man. And all those questions about Frigga? He could well have forced them to take advantage of Lunda’s sympathy.

“Say I let him go as he chooses,” Lunda muttered under her breath as she followed the meandering path that skirted around the perimeter of the street market. “It might be healthier for him to go some place where no one knows him and he knows no one.”

_But what if this is not about escaping?_

He had tried to conquer Midgard. As the best of Lunda’s knowledge, he had never repented the act nor showed contrition for the carnage he created. He could still hold onto that malice. He might not vanish into the wider universe to start a new life on his own terms, but carve out another path of destruction. If so, Lunda would be culpable in every death and injury Loki caused.

She stopped in her tracks and peered back at the golden towers of the royal palace. She could backtrack, tell the Einherjar about the uninvited guest in her house and let them deal with Loki and any plans Loki had in the works. She should have done as much in the morning.

Should have then, should be doing so now, and yet Lunda turned away and continued down the trek to her cottage. She simply couldn’t bring herself to believe it. The Loki she’d watched grow up just wasn’t one to do malice for the sake of malice. He was, however, recalcitrant when it came to explaining the reasons for his deeds.

_But I’ll ask. I’ll keep asking until he gives in and explains what happened._

The cottage was dark from the outside and the lights flickered on in a twitchy patter Lunda was beginning to accustom to. She called out, “Loki?”

No response.

She opened the bedroom door. Her bed was undone and empty. Her healer’s kit was gone.

_Fuck_


	4. After Svartalfheim (III)

Lunda was three and a half hours into the night shift and elbow-deep in a bowl of half-finished burn ointment when a sandy-haired page boy appeared at the door.

“Pardon me,” he said. “The Allfather has requested Chief Healer Lunda attend upon him.”

“Did the Allfather indicate what this is in regards to?” Lunda asked. She surmised it wasn’t an emergency, otherwise half the palace would have been battering at her door.

The page boy’s only response was a dejected shake of his head, but a trainee piped in, “If it’s the Allfather. It’ll always be urgent, wouldn’t it?”

“I would never suggest otherwise,” Lunda replied and bit back an impolitic comment.

Now that her team’s workload began to return to more normal levels, she had resumed the formal instruction no one had time for in the immediate aftermath of the dark elf attack. Unfortunately, the ointment was at a delicate stage in the preparation process and she didn’t trust the trainees to figure out the rest from written instructions alone. She mentally ran through the lists of senior staff currently on duty, but came up with no person who was both proficient at preparing this ointment and could be spared from their actual duties.

Lunda scraped as much of the pungent paste off her skin as she was able and reached for a hand towel. “Leave this for now and return to your usual duties. We’ll finish this when I return.”

As the page boy let her up to the royal apartments, Lunda tried to let go of her irritation. Yes, the king’s summons had disrupted her plans, but he wasn’t a trivial man and wouldn’t request her presence on a whim.

“The chief healer, your majesty,” the page boy said once they were at the threshold.

The guards snapped to attention, but the king — who had always intimidated Lunda to a degree no other member of the royal family could — remained slouched on the reception room couch, looking neither intimidating, nor particularly regal. He tilted his head and peered at her through half-lidded eyes.

Guilt coursed through Lunda. The king was not a young man and bore many heavy burdens. And what comforts could he retreat to when his workday was done? Frigga had passed beyond the bounds of this universe, Loki was officially dead, and Thor had departed for Midgard the previous day. Once more, Lunda pondered the question she asked herself so often recently: should she tell the king what she knew?

“I wish to be alone with the chief healer,” the king said. Despite his obvious fatigue, his voice was strong and commanding. The page boy and the four guards present hurriedly withdrew.

“Your majesty, what can I do for you?”

In lieu of a reply, he used Gungnir to help him to his feet and rounded the couch so he stood right in front of Lunda. Something was off in the set of his shoulders, in his clenched hand around Gungnir’s shaft, in the line of his mouth. Something was off in the set of his shoulders, in his clenched hand around Gungnir’s shaft, in the line of his mouth. Before Lunda could prompt him with further questions, however, the king’s form shimmered and took on a green hue.

“Loki?” Lunda scrambled backward, her healer’s kit falling out of her hand.

“There’s no need to be alarmed.”

“Why are you here? Where’s Odin?” A cold shiver ran up Lunda’s spine. “Is the Allfather dead?”

_Will the guards hear me if I scream? Or is it too late and the guardsmen are his allies? What do I_ _… Fuck._

“Lunda,” Loki said softly, his voice as smooth as silk. “I realise this is a shock, but there’s no reason to act like the Nine Realms are about to collapse in on themselves,” He paused for a beat, as if waiting for Lunda to say something, but Lunda stood frozen, feeling like prey caught between a trap and a hunter. Shaking his head, he rolled his eyes and added, “The Allfather is alive. Merely incapacitated.”

She exhaled and even managed to gather up the contents of her healer’s kit, which had spilled open when she dropped it. But her relief was fleeting. There had been nothing but doubts and second-guessing since Loki vanished from her house, and they battered at her thoughts with even greater fervour now.

“What proof do I have that you’re telling me the truth?” She braced herself for an explosion of fury, but Loki merely looked thoughtful and that gave her the courage to press her point. “No one except me knows you’re alive, so why not just disappear and start again somewhere else? But since you are still on Asgard, why wouldn’t you kill him? You bear a great deal of enmity towards him and a good portion of it, I think, is justified.”

She caught a momentary flicker of surprise before Loki schooled his face into a bland, non-committal expression. “Of all the people to opine my life — and it feels like every person with whom I cross paths does so — you’re the first to say I’m right to hate him.”

“I think that as a healer I have a better vantage point than most. And, if you care to know, Eir is as furious with your father as I am.”

“Is she? Hmm.” Loki leaned against the back of the couch. “I think I would’ve killed him earlier, maybe even a month ago. But perhaps my anger is waning and now that my mother is dead, it doesn’t seem nearly so important to hate him anymore. Besides, I already killed one father. It didn’t help.”

It took Lunda several moments to parse out what he was saying. “You mean your birth-father?”

“Laufey. I suppose that’s not common knowledge outside the House of Odin. But, yes, I’m a princeling of two realms and fated to be king of neither. Instead, here I am, stealing another man’s face and titles.”

“To prove to your father that you can be king nevertheless?”

“Norns be merciful, not everything is about him! This is merely the means to an end, the simplest way to do what I must.” Loki made a face as Lunda started to respond. “Don’t ask me to explain. I already said more than I should’ve; I can’t elaborate.”

_Not won’t. Can’t._

“I don’t much like that sound of that.”

“You’re not meant to like it.” He sighed. “Well? Will you help me, or do you intend to interrogate me until the sun rises?”

“What if I refuse?” she asked after a long moment. As agreeable as Loki was trying to be — she was sure she received more answers from him tonight than he had answered throughout the entire duration of his trial — she still had no proof that Odin was alive. And what did he mean by “the simplest way to do what I must”? For all she knew, he planned to set the entirety of the Nine Realms on fire.

“You’re free to turn around and walk out the door, but you won’t be able to tell anyone what you saw here. And should you try, I’ll know and that’s when we’ll start to have problems.”

_Are these the same precautions Odin took with Eir?_

“But I’d appreciate it if you stayed,” Loki went on. “I do need your expertise.”

Lunda considered her options. Loki presently looked about as poorly as he had the first time she saw him after his return from Midgard, which did suggest that he was genuine about needing medical attention. Yet even if he were ill, he was physically stronger than her and a powerful mage. Plus he held Gungnir in his hand. Moreover, he didn’t need to resort to his own power, he could merely summon the guards and have them coerce her into doing his will.

For the sake of her self-preservation, she had to agree to help him. But what was she about to become an accomplice to? Any person worth their mettle had to recognise that higher loyalties existed than their own life.

“I-I, um…” She clenched the handles of her healer’s kit. “How do I know you won’t do something heinous? I don’t understand what you’re thinking, what your plans are or what you ultimately want. If I help you and you pursue the same path of terror you brought to Midgard, I’ll be complicit in that.”

“You can’t know, Lunda. Not for sure. Only the Norns have that power.”

For the first time in her life, she genuinely hated him. He was Loki Silvertongue — master of mischief, lies and deceit. Why couldn’t he spin some tale to persuade her of his good intentions? Why leave the decision to her? She was a healer — she believed in science, communities of best practise and carefully measured dosages of medication. Blind faith was for priests and dullards.

Silence lingered until Lunda couldn’t take her indecision anymore.

“All right, fine!” she hissed. Her heart drummed and she refused to consider all the possible consequences of the decisions she was making here. “What is wrong with you?”

“A question oft-asked, but never adequately answered,” Loki responded dryly. He took a seat in a nearby armchair, set Gungnir down by his feet and unfastened the many heavy layers of his clothing until he exposed his torso. “Ignore the burns; those I can manage on my own. It’s the dark elf wound that continues to bother me. The whole area aches, sometimes even cramps and spasms.”

“Which is hard to cover up when you’re impersonating the Allfather,” Lunda said. They prior interactions had given her a good idea of how high Loki’s pain threshold had become and the scrolls of full-thickness burns across his chest only confirmed this. He wouldn’t have risked revealing himself to Lunda if pain management was the issue. “This armchair won’t work. Lie down on the couch so I can make a proper assessment. It’d be better yet if I could examine you with the assistance of soul forge.”

“I’m sure you’ll manage without.”

“So there’s more damage than these burns and you’re not keen on me seeing that, am I understanding this right?”

Loki shrugged and shuffled over to the couch. With a dissatisfied grunt, Lunda began her examination, working clockwise around the old injury side, of which only a red splotch was visible. In fact, if she hadn’t been looking for it, she wouldn’t have noticed it amid the charred marks.

“Was this Odin’s doing?”

“I told you to ignore the burns.”

“If this is from an altercation between the two of you, you must have responded in kind. Have his wounds been cared for? If not, I can —”

“I assure you, I was kinder to him than he was to me,” Loki said, his voice turning sour.

She let the matter drop, but as she continued her study, she couldn’t contain her curiosity. “Thor still doesn’t know you’re alive, does he? I did wonder why he left for Midgard again; it’s safer for you if he’s not around.”

“He wished to leave, but yes, I told him what he wanted to hear. I don’t expect he’ll be back for some years.”

“Years? I thought it’d only be a brief journey. Thor should be here, helping with the reconstruction and supporting his father. As far as he knows, Odin has just lost his wife and a child. What son abandons his father in these circumstances?”

Loki nudged her hand away from the burn her fingers had strayed toward. “Thor has always been a selfish brat and he’ll never be a good king, which, thankfully, even he’s beginning to realise. So he runs away to Midgard, where nothing is expected of him beyond a few swings of his hammer.”

“He does swing that hammer well,” Lunda said in a futile effort to inject levity into the conversation. She crossed her arms and sighed. “There’s lingering muscle damage around the wound. That poison was in your system for a considerable length of time, so it doesn’t surprise me. Had you not disappeared as abruptly as you did, I would’ve cautioned you of this possibility and we could’ve started on a regiment to prevent this becoming an issue. And whatever happened between you and your father, I suspect he may have exacerbated the situation.”

“He’s skilled at doing that,” Loki snickered. His abdominal muscles tightened and Lunda just caught his stifled grimace. “Is there anything to be done? Or is it a matter of waiting it out?”

“There’s a draught. I don’t have it in my kit and if I remember right, there’s little left in the inventory, so I’ll prepare a batch tonight and have some sent to you in the morning. If you don’t see improvement by next week, we’ll need to discuss more involved treatment options.”

“Thank you, Lunda.”

“Always happy to help,” she muttered and left him to clamber off the couch without her assistance.

On walking out to the corridor, Lunda sucked in a breath and let it out in a slow, consciously controlled exhale. It did somewhat help. She returned to her trainees and was able to put on a cheerful facade while she guided them through the rest of their lessons. But even in the morning, when shift-change loomed and she finished off the last of her tasks, her hands were still trembling lightly.

“Your royal majesty,” she wrote as neatly as she could manage, “Please find enclosed the draught we discussed last night. I have also enclosed two jars of freshly made burn ointment. I believe the queen always kept at least one jar on hand in the royal apartments and perhaps you yet have some on hand, but I would urge you to verify the age those supplies. The ointment begins to lose its potency within weeks, so it is better to use a fresh batch whenever one is available.”

She lined up the glass jars into a neat row, then tapped her fingers against the tabletop. With a grimace, she shot up out of her seat and strode over to the cupboard where the soporifics were stored.

_I just hope I’m not making a terrible mistake with all of this._

She chose a small vial of dark blue liquid and set it down next to the other medication.

“Also attached is a vial of the soporific you requested in our previous discussions. Recommended dosages and instructions for usage are listed on each container,” Lunda added.

The soporific wasn’t even a lie. Odin had requested it from her previously — when Loki was believed to be lost to the void and more recently, after the queen’s death. Lunda suspected Loki too could use something to ease his sleep.


End file.
